Close your eyes, and you are afloat in a sea of eigengrau, amid a sargasso of phosphenes.

Let me explain (and see if I got this right.) Apparently, when you close your eyes, the “blackness” that you see is a color called “eigengrau” and the hexadecimal description is #16161D. But chances are good that you don’t see endless darkness behind your lids; sometimes you see flashes, stars, color-spots, and moving, evolving geometric patterns–“phosphenes.” It’s light, but it’s light emitted within your own eye. Your retina is always on, and when you close your eyes (or rub them), the neurotransmitters in your visual centers continue to fire, emitting “biophotons” that the visual cortex interprets just as it does other light, but this light isn’t exactly like the stimulation your eye receives in a well-lit room. Different atoms within the eye and optic nerve release slightly different photons and your visual cortex interprets these photons and patterns of emission in various ways: as flashes of color, pure light, or geometric patterns, depending on the nature of the biophoton.